Year-old program has opened doors for hundreds of...

2of2Air Force veteran Willie Jefferson, 33, is greeted by Mayor Annise Parker at the Housing Houston's Heroes appreciation ceremony Wednesday. He is one of 148 homeless veterans who have found a home with help from the initiative.Photo: Johnny Hanson, Staff

A decade ago, James E. Adams Jr. began a four-year stint as a contract mechanic in Iraq. The Vietnam-era Marine worked 12-hour days, pulled down a six-figure salary and eventually ran a battlefield hydraulic shop. He'd made a fantastic comeback from a layoff, bankruptcy and foreclosure.

He got back to Houston in 2008 - just in time to fall hard and find himself under a bridge when Hurricane Ike hit.

"I told Ike, bring Tina too, because I didn't care," he admitted Wednesday at the southwest Houston apartment complex that became his home a month ago. "I found that Olde English. I dibbled and dabbled with just no purpose. I went from riches to rags, just like that."

The 58-year-old has become one of the faces of Houston's renewed emphasis on ending homelessness and specifically finding veterans places to stay.

Thousands of former service members - from Iraq and Afghanistan back to Vietnam - have struggled in recent years to find jobs and residences.

But in an unprecedented local effort, the city has housed 557 individuals and families - including 488 homeless vets and their families - since May 29, 2012.

On Wednesday, Mayor Annise Parker and the Houston Housing Authority celebrated the one-year anniversary of Housing Houston's Heroes, an initiative that has provided homes and services to 148 homeless vets - including 101 who were chronically without a place to stay - in 100 days.

Federal grant money

Meanwhile on Wednesday, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development and VA secretaries announced that HUD will provide $60 million to public housing agencies nationwide to help homeless vets.

Of the $2.5 million coming to Texas, the authority will receive nearly $600,000 to cover 100 housing vouchers.

The HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program combines rental assistance, with case management and medical services. In Houston, the health care is provided by the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center. The effort is part of President Barack Obama's goal to end veteran homelessness by 2015. Since 2008, the program has housed 42,557 formerly homeless vets nationwide, including nearly 800 in Houston.

The initiative connects vets with education, health care, counseling and other services.

Parker said city officials, Harris County, federal agencies and local organizations - including Goodwill, Catholic Charities, SEARCH Homeless Services - will now apply lessons learned from working with vets to the general homeless population.

"The realization of how much we spend on the chronically homeless - the estimate of $100 million on approximately 2,500 people - is insane," the mayor said. "We've had a lot of organizations working very hard on the issue, but not necessarily working together. The city is bringing them in to work together."

In November, Parker and authority officials announced priority access for the homeless to 1,000 units of permanent housing before drawing tenants from a general waiting list. The Harris County Housing Authority made a similar move in January. And this month, volunteers hit the streets to create a detailed homeless registry.

6,400 homeless

Advocates say the database - which now includes 1,000 people and will eventually have 2,500 - will allow individuals, not just trends, to be tracked for the first time. The city has more than 6,400 homeless people, according to a count this year by the Houston Coalition for the Homeless.

Mandy Chapman Semple, Parker's special assistant for homeless initiatives, said the city has entered another 100-day period with the goal of housing 300 using the formula that worked for the vets: Access to deeply subsidized affordable housing connected to supportive services for those most in need.

"In the next couple of years, I absolutely believe that you will see a significant reduction in the street homeless population, in downtown in particular," she said.

Adams is working as a security guard and has enrolled in classes to become an electrician, but receiving keys to a home cinched his turnaround.

"I said: 'I've got a place.' I was emotional," he said, dressed mannequin-neat in a butter-colored polo shirt and khakis. "I'm different. It had been four years."